What was advertised in a revolutionary American newspaper 250 years ago today?

“The Sign of the Glove.”

In the fall of 1776, Timothy Dexter stocked a “Large assortment of Moose Leather, and Wash Leather Breeches, made after the best manner” at “his Shop … opposite Somerby’s Landing” in Newburyport, Massachusetts.  In an advertisement in the October 4 edition of the Essex Journal, he informed prospective customers that he would sell his wares “exceeding low for Cash” since he intended to leave the town and wished to liquidate his merchandise.  Readers unfamiliar with Dexter’s shop could look for the “Sign of the Glove” once they were in the vicinity of Somerby’s Landing.  Some towns and cities would introduce standardized street numbers by the end of the century, but until that happened shop signs aided in navigating the streets and identifying businesses.

Like many other shopkeepers in both urban ports and smaller towns, Dexter selected a device to identify his business.  As residents and visitors traversed the streets of Newburyport, they spotted the “Sign of the Glove” at Dexter’s shop and other signs that marked the locations of other shops, encountering a landscape of visual images deployed to facilitate commerce and consumption in eighteenth-century America.  Those signs served as precursors to the logos that companies would adopt in later centuries.  Some entrepreneurs used them as a rudimentary form of branding.  Dexter, for instance, not only used the “Sign of the Glove” to mark his location “opposite Somerby’s Landing” but also to promote his business in his notice in the Essex Journal.

Few shop signs from the eighteenth century survive today, yet newspaper advertisements reveal that they were common sights (and sites) in early America.  Not every shop had a sign, but the proprietors of those that did likely hoped that their signs would make their businesses more visible and more memorable.  In a competitive marketplace, every small advantage might help.